When now former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was named the female face of lifestyle brand Buffalo David Bitton, she become the first ever MMA fighter to land a fashion campaign.
Best known for Buffalo Jeans, the Montreal-founded brand is available in 3000 locations worldwide, spanning 18 countries. Rousey represents the brand’s Buffalo Pro line, designed to specifically reach the brand’s sports-minded consumer.
It’s such an amazing opportunity to be able to represent Buffalo Pro,” said Rousey. “Not only am I the first female they’ve ever had representing the campaign, but it’s the first time any MMA fighter has done any type of fashion thing at all… I never had the confidence when I was younger to dress well, and avoided any type of fashion and femininity, and I’m enjoying the chance to embrace it at this point in my life.”
For the campaign, which was shot at a Victorian-style townhouse in Manhattan, Rousey shows off her sexy, softer side, wearing in nothing but Buffalo jeans, a denim shirt, and a knit sweater paired with stilettos.
Much of the campaign was shot in bed.
While the direct sex appeal of the campaign may feel innapropriate for an Olympic combat sports athlete, Rousey notes that she consciously puts on weight for photoshoots, so girls have a role mode of a muscular body, rather than an emaciated model.
In a late 2014 interview with Rosemary Feitelberg for Women’s Wear Daily, Rousey talked fashion, and more.
Rousey scores a 72.23 in Repucom’s Breakthrough category rankings, which measure the extent to which consumers pay attention to a celebrity when they see him/her in the media. As 33rd out of 3,127 celebrities in the U.S., she beat Serena Williams, who finished at 1,914, but trailed Sandra Bullock, Ariana Grande and others, such as Tom Hanks.
WWD: You are closing in on a major activewear and sneaker endorsement deal. In the meantime, how did the Buffalo David Bitton deal come together?
Ronda Rousey: I purposefully have been holding out a long time on the apparel side of sponsorship. It was worth giving up lots of money that had been offered to me in order to pick exactly the right sponsor at the right time. Buffalo Pro was the perfect thing because they never had a woman, and there had never been any MMA athlete who had a sponsored fashion deal at all. So, I was excited to jump all over it. I got so many cool clothes. I was looking around and said to my roommate the other day, Jesus Christ, why haven’t I gotten a fashion sponsorship sooner?
WWD: What do most people misunderstand about what you do?
RR: People have a very hard time seeing the art of it. It’s called martial arts because that really is what it is. It’s not just brawling and throwing your hands. There’s a sweet science and a beauty to it that you really have to be close to and immersed in to see. On the outside, it just looks like violence and gore, but, on the inside, you see two people competing against each other in the most honest of settings. When every single layer is pulled back in a fight, that is the time when you are your truest self and you really learn the most about yourself, mentally and physically. It’s all about trying to outsmart the other person. It’s not really about being stronger or faster.
All sports are a metaphor for life, especially MMA more than anything else. It’s not like baseball, football or soccer, where the objective is to make so many points. In martial arts, the objective is always the philosophy and the discipline. Where I come from is judo, where the principals are maximum efficiency, minimum effort and mutual welfare and benefit. In judo, you’re supposed to try every single movement where it’s the most efficient. If you do a throw perfectly, it should take no effort from you. That’s what I’ve really learned in my life — being efficient in everything I do. And you always need that other person, and you’re only as good as the person you train with. So, every single time you throw someone eight times, you need to take eight falls yourself for the other person. That’s another principal that I have always applied to my life. I can’t expect things to be all about me all the time. I give as much as I expect to get.
WWD: Any weight-control advice for models?
R.R.: Every single time I do a shoot, I try to do it at a weight I can maintain. With the ESPN Body issue, I got a little bit lighter because ESPN tries to capture the human body at its highest potential. With anything else — like Maxim or the car magazine shoot I did in Brazil that is about femininity and not athleticism‚ I purposefully try to go in a little bit heavier, at a weight I can chill at and not have to cut down to. I want to be looking how I would on any given Wednesday. It’s important to have proper role models and to have proper sexual role models. Growing up, I would see all these chicks in magazines who looked nothing like me at all, and I thought there was something wrong with me. In middle school and high school, the boys I had crushes on were pawing at girls in magazines or just talking about girls who looked nothing like me. I love all the Dove commercials that are about the empowerment of women.
WWD: Were you concerned that modeling and acting would take away from your athleticism?
RR: It’s impossible for people to not take me seriously as an athlete because I’m the best in the world. That gives me a lot of leeway to do whatever I want outside of it. That’s the great thing about fighting in sports: It is so definite. You are the undisputed champion of the world. No one can take that away from you, regardless of how many movies or model shoots you do.
WWD: How has your style changed?
R.R.: I never would have guessed I would have been into fashion. When I was younger, I wore really baggy clothes to really try to hide my body. I never put any effort into what I was wearing because I felt self-conscious about letting people know I was really trying. If I really tried and they didn’t like what I was wearing, then it would hurt more. My way of protecting myself was to not try and to act like I didn’t care. When I got older, I realized fashion was for everyone else to see, but it was also a way to express myself and what I was feeling that day. I started to realize if I dress better, I feel better.
There are a lot of takeaways from this shoot. One of them is that Ronda Rousey cleans up pretty good, better in fact than most fighters. Another is that she could take that male model one handed.
